2-minute read
Daniel MunozNorthJersey.com
Oct. 10, 2026, 5:58 a.m. ET
Teaneck resident Neil Kleid has been writing comic books for over 20 years. He grew up in Michigan drawing comics off of ones he’d buy from the local 7-Eleven and comic stores. Eventually he moved to Manhattan in 1999, hoping to make it as an artist.
In pitching his drawings to different editors, one theme emerged: the drawings were good, but his writing style was captivating, from the pacing to the dialogue.
“They basically said, ‘You should lean into writing,’” Kleid said. So he did, working on different stories over the years. He and his wife eventually moving to Teaneck in 2008.
On Sunday, Oct. 11, Kleid is taking part in a panel at the New York Comic Con at the Javits Center in Manhattan discussing Jewish identity in comics, and also signing copies of his new book.
Story continues below photo gallery
His new book, “Return to the Motherfreaking Factory“ — which he describes as a mix between “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and Stephen King’s “It” — was released Oct. 6.
“Comics is an industry that was founded by Jews,” he said. “The original Golden Age creators were pretty much all Jewish.”
“Folks who created Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Spiderman — all those characters were created by Jewish creators,”Kleid said. “It’s in the DNA of comics.”
Kept out of ‘respectable’ forms of art
According to the Jewish Book Council, Jewish writers and artists — many of them immigrants from Europe — were kept out of more “respectable” forms of art, and so they were relegated to superheroes and comic books.
One of the most famous Jewish comic book artists is Stan Lee (Stanley Leiber), a Romanian-Jewish immigrant known as one of the creators of superhero Spiderman.
Another prominent Jewish comic book artist was Jack Kirby, who grew up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and —along with Leiber — created superhero legends like the Fantastic Four, Thor, the Hulk and X-Men.
